Plausible Deniability
by vernajast
Summary: Naruto and Sasuke have always managed to find each other. Sweetness, drama, friendship, strength, understanding, love...and a mysterious death that could destroy them all but not a deathfic this time . A few years after the manga. SasuNaruSasu.


_**Warnings:** NOT a deathfic; this one has a happier ending than most of my writing. Alcohol, implied sex, a smattering of blood/violence. __Canonverse. AU since its fluid timeline ranges from 3 to 5 years after the manga (including flashbacks). In the parts that aren't flashbacks, Naruto and Sasuke are somewhere around 20/21/22 years of age.  
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_**Summary:** Naruto and Sasuke have always managed to find each other. Sweetness, drama, friendship, strength, understanding, love...and a mysterious death that could destroy them all._

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**Plausible Deniability  
by vernajast**

_sasuke x naruto x sasuke_

"I didn't do it."

"Say it again. I want to hear you say it. I want...I want to believe you."

"I. DID. NOT. DO. IT." He bit out each word, tongue lapping against the roof of his mouth to stop the bile that threatened to surge up his throat. "I didn't kill him."

"Fine. You didn't do it." Anko folded her hands in front of her, shifting personalities again, trying to keep him off balance. "Then, who did?"

He remained silent, and with no answers forthcoming, she left him alone in his cell. As soon as she was gone, he slumped, crumpled in on himself. A single attempt to reach his chakra ended with the chair upset and his body collapsed, shattered by pain, curled on the sticky stone floor.

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/ / / / 2 years earlier / / / /

They stood across the dusty street from one another, and even though they couldn't hear, they knew how the conversation would go and managed to fill in the other's voice as his lips moved.

"Sasuke."

"Hn. You."

A year ago, Naruto had proclaimed that Sasuke could go jump off a cliff and die for all he cared because he was finished chasing after his sorry, thankless Uchiha ass. Sasuke had agreed that it was a good idea, in somewhat fewer words.

The day Naruto stopped chasing him was the day Sasuke stopped running.

Now they occasionally met like this: the faint brush of familiar chakra in the distance, sharp eyes searching the crowd, aloof circling as they meandered closer. If it was a good day, there might be a bump of shoulders, quietly exchanged words. Even if not, they always made a point to acknowledge one another before moving on to the next town, heading in opposite directions.

From opposing sides of the street, they carried out visual inspections, reassuring themselves of the other's well-being:

Naruto noted that Sasuke's shoulders were still terribly broad, something he'd never gotten over after seeing him that first time three years ago at Orochimaru's mostly destroyed base.

Sasuke observed in that deceivingly careless manner of his that Naruto seemed to have grown again. He was catching up, and the Uchiha sighed, knowing that this was yet another instance in which the deadlast loser was likely to surpass him.

They watched each other across the street for longer than usual, and surprisingly, it was Sasuke who turned away first this time, backing down from their impromptu staring contest for once in a lifetime.

But that was fine. Naruto had a mission to complete anyway, so he turned away, as well, and disappeared.

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/ / / / 14 months earlier / / / /

Naruto dropped to the ground, teeth bared, eyes daring Sasuke to make another move. The Uchiha obliged, bare fists already drawing back, and the pair tumbled and flew around an empty field.

To passing civilians, it looked like two blurs sailing past-there and gone again as they sparred across the countryside, matching move for move, blow for blow.

To anyone who knew them, they would have looked almost happy.

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/ / / / 8 months earlier / / / /

They passed in the market without making eye contact, and a few hours later, found themselves bellied-up to a bar on the shadier side of Kaneda. The air was full of cigar smoke; their elbows stuck to the tacky surface. Grins stretched across both of their faces.

"And then you-and then you and Sakura...the CAT!" Naruto pounded a fist on the bar. "I think everyone gets that mission first!"

"That fucking cat's on the village payroll." Sasuke rolled his eyes, but the effect was lost when he was still smiling.

"Has t' be," his friend agreed, laughing. He picked up his empty glass, wondering _why_ it was empty.

"Bartender!" The man refilled it with a bland look, as if two young, powerful, and very drunk shinobi getting soused in his bar was an everyday occurrence, and from the look of the other customers, perhaps that wasn't so far off from the truth.

Naruto took a drink and glanced over at Sasuke to find his former teammate examining him quietly, the smile gone from his face. "Sasuke? What's wrong?"

"I..."

Sasuke seemed to have an indecisive moment. If he hadn't looked so serious, Naruto would have laughed. Sasuke, indecisive?

"Naruto...I want to kiss you."

The Uchiha raised his chin, as if daring Naruto to crack a joke, but the man sitting beside him was now very serious, as well, his drink forgotten.

"Okay."

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/ / / / 1 month earlier / / / /

"You've been avoiding me."

"No, I've been busy. Do you really think my life revolves around you, Sasuke?"

"It should."

"Asshole."

"No, I mean..." Sasuke turned Naruto's head toward him with a single finger on his chin and looked right into his eyes. "It really should."

"Oh."

A quiet, pensive Naruto was disturbing. Sasuke dropped his hand and turned away, retrieving his chopsticks to continue picking at his bowl of fish and vegetables.

"Sasuke, I only came to tell you-they're making me Hokage!"

Why the hell was Naruto flashing that fake smile now? Sasuke could feel it before he even turned a questioning frown on the man beside him. There must have been something else. He saw the familiar wobble of Naruto's determination and ice freezing that grin in place. He didn't want to hear this.

"I wanted to be the one to tell you since, you know, it means I can't take anymore missions and..." Naruto stopped when Sasuke's whole body seemed to go rigid on the stool beside him.

"Ah." Yes, it made sense. Sasuke licked his lips and inhaled deeply, refusing to gag on the salty-sour scent of ramen noodles and the shop's stale, sweating patrons.

He needed to go. He was starting to get a headache, and his hands were twitching to do something rash. Something horribly stupid.

Naruto beat him to it, and two rough, scarred hands came up to cup Sasuke's cheeks. A single tug and the Uchiha leaned forward, letting Naruto guide their lips together across the gap between their seats. Neither closed his eyes, even when Sasuke's lips parted and Naruto's arm slid around his shoulders.

"Hey! We don't 'llow none of _that_ in here. Pay up an' get gone."

They did as they were told, stepping quietly out into the street, but instead of parting ways, they kept walking. And walking. Eventually, Naruto bumped Sasuke's shoulder, and they turned off the street into an alley, into a hotel, into a room. With the door latched behind them, they fell onto a bed.

Sasuke had just enough time to notice Naruto's traveling pack propped in the corner before he forgot the room altogether.

It was their first and last night together, and they let that be an excuse to drop all pretense, pull away the masks and barriers. There were no trite phrases of love and devotion exchanged; they just knew. They had always just known.

In the morning, Naruto awoke alone, but he still smiled at the sunlight peeking through the blinds and rolled over into the indention Sasuke had left in the bed. Yesterday had been one of the good days.

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/ / / / present / / / /

"I didn't do it."

"Then, who did?"

It was the same conversation, another day. Ibiki's operation ran constantly, regardless of the hour, so he couldn't say what time it was or how long he'd slept since the last session.

"Who killed him?"

"No one." It didn't sound like his own voice; it was too raw, rough, too damned tired. "He isn't dead."

The examiner laughed loudly right beside his ear. "Right. Okay, that's a new one. So, if he's not dead, whose body do we have rotting in the morgue? Who is that _shell_, if it isn't _him_?"

"I...don't know."

"Okay, then. I think we're done here. Ibiki's gonna question you personally tomorrow." Anko banged on the cell door until one of the three Anbu outside came over to let her out.

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/ / / / 3 days earlier / / / /

When he found Naruto, he was going to kill him.

For the first time in eight months, they were in the same town, and Naruto was hiding. It was such a discordant thought-Naruto hiding from anything-and yet Sasuke knew Naruto was nearby and refusing to acknowledge him.

He wanted answers!

His dark eyes meticulously scanned the crowd, searching for the source of that unique chakra, but he was caught off-guard by a completely different yet equally familiar presence that appeared just in front of where he was standing.

"Uchiha Sasuke, you are under arrest for the murder of Uzumaki Naruto, Seventh Hokage of the Village Hidden in the Leaves." Kakashi's voice was cold and impersonal, but each word was a wound opening in Sasuke's chest.

Naruto was...someone had...but...b-but that chakra...that chakra was unmistakable. Sasuke stood in silent disbelief, unable to tell Kakashi that he _just knew_ that Naruto was still alive. That he would show him. His former sensei merely looked at Sasuke with _both_ eyes, pinched a nerve in Sasuke's neck, and the world went black.

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/ / / / present / / / /

The next person to question Sasuke was indeed Ibiki, himself. The Anbu guards led the prisoner out of his cell and down a long, thin corridor to a room with a metal door and a reinforced glass window. Sasuke had tried to ignore the cries from within similar rooms they passed along the way, but by the time he was seated and being strapped into the chair, he was sure he knew what was coming. He faced the scarred man without fear, meeting Ibiki's hard gaze with his own, just as unyielding.

Unimpressed, Ibiki asked the same question as his female counterpart. Unlike Anko, he used their names, obviously trying to gauge a reaction: "Sasuke, did you kill Naruto?"

"Of course not. That moron is alive." _Until I find him, and then he's-_

Ibiki backhanded him across the mouth, chuckling darkly at Sasuke's shocked expression. "Did you murder Naruto?"

"No."

He hit him again, casting a disgusted look at Sasuke's blood spattering the floor. "What happened, Uchiha? Were you jealous?"

"Tch. Never." A lie, and Sasuke hadn't known it until he spoke the word aloud and heard how falsely it rang in the stone cell.

Ibiki hit him a third time. "I can keep doing this all night."

"So can I."

The interrogator seemed to pause and consider Sasuke, who was staring blankly, expecting to be hit again. He turned his back on the young man and abruptly changing the course of the conversation: "Were you and Uzumaki involved in a romantic relationship, Uchiha?"

Pause.

"No." _It isn't a relationship._

"Did you have romantic feelings toward him?"

Pause.

"Yes."

A single flat syllable felt too small to explain what was between them. It wasn't enough. Ibiki would never understand the significance of what he was asking. Or how lucky he was to get an honest answer.

The scarred interrogator eyed Sasuke again. "Uchiha. Stay."

Sasuke ignored the man, refraining from voicing his disdain at being spoken to like someone's pet. He'd had enough of that treatment by Orochimaru years before. He was no one's dog. He owed these people nothing, especially not his loyalty. If they weren't suppressing his chakra, he would have escaped long ago.

Ibiki opened the door and stepped out into the corridor, leaving Sasuke strapped to a chair in the middle of the room. After struggling for a few seconds and accepting that it was pointless, Sasuke looked up to find that Ibiki was just on the other side of the reinforced glass barrier.

He was talking to Kakashi, whom Sasuke hadn't seen since his capture, and each man was facing away just enough that Sasuke couldn't read their lips. It didn't matter for long, though, because Ibiki left the window, and then Kakashi was standing right in front of Sasuke.

They each held the other in cold regard for a long time before Kakashi deigned to speak. "As Naruto's successor and the current Hokage, I am not powerless."

Despite the man's typical uniform, Sasuke didn't doubt the claim. He was also sure he detected a hidden threat, more subtle than his words, barbed. The Uchiha remained silent, tense, and expectant.

"I could have killed you instead of arresting you, Sasuke. You are a missing nin recognized by the Hidden Leaf."

"You didn't."

Sasuke watched the man's one-eyed expression turn to stone.

"Do you know why you're here, Sasuke?" Kakashi dragged another chair from the corner and sat down off to the side.

"You believe I killed a man who isn't dead." The way Kakashi's eye widened minutely was amusing, but this wasn't helping them find Naruto any faster. "There is a fake body in your morgue."

"How do you know that?"

"Because Naruto's chakra is still present in Ikagawashii."

"Ibiki believes you have some kind of obsessive feelings toward Naruto based on your past rivalry. He thinks jealousy made you kill him."

"And that sounds like a plot from one of your books." It was becoming harder to speak as his jaw and cheeks swelled from Ibiki's abuse, and he was sure at least three of his teeth were loose. "I didn't kill Naruto."

"Then, what were you doing in the city where we found his body?"

"Looking for him."

"Sasuke, explain."

There was just enough left of the boy he had been for Sasuke to respond to his sensei's command. He told Kakashi about the years of random meetings, about the good days and the bad, about the best and worst of all, the last time they had met. "I hadn't expected to see him again, so I tracked his chakra across Grass Country to Ikagawashii. I was almost there when you stopped me."

Oddly enough, even with only one eye exposed, Kakashi took on that same considering look Ibiki had worn an hour earlier.

Sasuke couldn't believe they were wasting so much time, getting nowhere. "After that, you still don't believe me?"

Kakashi shook his head. "No. I believe you." He said it so quietly, Sasuke almost missed it, but he couldn't miss Kakashi standing up and moving around the back of the chair to begin releasing his bindings. "I shouldn't be doing this."

As soon as the straps were removed, Sasuke stood up and stretched, and then, backed away from Kakashi, on-guard. "What is _this_?"

"Sasuke, I'm reinstating your position as a subordinate and sending you on a mission." The official tone dropped along with Sasuke's stomach. "Find Naruto."

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/ / / / 2 days later / / / /

Ikagawashii was a squat, dingy town of low brown huts and larger stone battlements leftover from wartimes past. Like Rain Country, Grass was situated between multiple larger countries whose conflicts often spilled over their borders like so much blood. Ikagawashii was a gambling town, a haven for missing nin, criminals, and opportunists, and some part of Sasuke rebelled against Naruto dying in such mean circumstance.

As soon as he entered the gates, he felt the familiar slide of Naruto's chakra against his own, the sensual manner in which they intertwined, merged, fell away. The signature was weak, barely there had he been willing to see the truth, but Sasuke tracked it anyway, and long after midnight, he found himself crawling on hands and knees into the back of one of the large defense towers. He ran up and up and up, apprehension growing with each step, and Sasuke resolutely didn't imagine Naruto's body lying prone and discarded, used, beaten, drained of chakra and the Kyuubi.

The Sharingan took in every detail, cutting through the darkness even as its owner crept into the turret and froze. There was so much blood, but there were very few footprints. No one had walked away from the fight.

The Sharingan spun and Sasuke's heart felt near to bursting. At the far end of the battlement, lay a single intact body.

"Dobe. Wake up."

The words were more for Sasuke's sake than Naruto's, mumbled as he rolled his friend onto his back and pried open his eyelids with his fingers. All at once, Sasuke was standing just outside the Kyuubi's cage looking up at the giant beast with a cold, blank gaze. "He's dying?"

"Yes." So much hatred and amusement. A tiny word made monstrous by the demon's deep, echoing voice.

"If he dies, you'll die?" Sasuke asked impatiently. Did no one understand his urgency?

"True." The demon seemed to be sizing him up, but Sasuke couldn't help noticing its chakra was fully contained within the cage and it was only the two of them, alone.

"You're cut off from him?"

"Uchiha Sasuke." It glared down at him, and Sasuke got the distinct impression that it would snap him up between its jaws if he wandered too close. "You ask too many questions." It ejected him from Naruto's mind so quickly his physical body stumbled backward three steps. His hand slipped against a blood slick wall, searching for purchase.

That was a _yes_, then.

Sasuke stepped gingerly across the sticky tile and sat down beside Naruto. His hand rested on the injured man's chest, and he was aware of the occasional, faint thump of his heart.

_The Kyuubi can't heal Naruto. It can't leave the cage, as if...it's being suppressed...and..._

He could feel himself growing weary under the strain of days trapped in interrogation, and now to find this...It was too much, he was going to black out, he was going to-Sasuke swayed, and then jumped back and away from Naruto so fast he ruffled matted blond hair. Instantly, he could feel his chakra and strength returning.

Discerning eyes narrowed on Naruto's body and Sasuke stalked back to his side, kneeling down to rip open Naruto's vest and yank up his shirt. There it was: a chakra inhibitor wrapped around his former teammate's waist. With cold proficiency, he broke through the locking mechanism with an overload of chakra and tossed the inhibitor away, pretending not to hear the Kyuubi's deep laughter inside his own head.

"I hope you're worth the effort," he mumbled, scooping Naruto up into his arms, blood and all.

"You...were." Naruto smiled faintly though his eyes remained shut, and he turned his face toward Sasuke's chest. "I knew you'd find me, Sasuke. We always seem...to find each other..."

Sasuke grunted and tightened his grip on Naruto, idly occupying his mind with thoughts of how heavy the idiot had gotten and not how nice it felt to hold him again. It was only when they were already halfway back to Konoha that Sasuke realized Naruto had killed- no, had _destroyed_ his kidnappers without the aid of chakra. He knew Naruto was strong, but he'd never realized...

Something of Sasuke's confusion must have bled through into his posture because Naruto surprised him by shifting in his arms, one blue eye open just enough to peer up at him. "Thanks, Sas'ke. Told you I'd...bring you back."

Sasuke didn't bother to contradict the truth.

**/ / / / . end . / / / /**


End file.
